Gas pressure is sensed for a number of different applications. A common way of sensing gas pressure is to use a diaphragm which deforms in accordance with gas pressure, and a transducer to transduce that gas pressure-induced deformation into a usable signal.
Currently-available gas pressure sensors are large and consume large amounts of power. The deflection of the diaphragm must be measured by a separate device.
Currently-available devices include magnetic reluctance sensors, capacitance sensors and strain gage techniques. One use for gas pressure sensors includes measuring atmospheric pressures in outer space, or on a planet such as Mars. An understanding of Martian atmospheric pressure will help to model its atmosphere. However, boosting gas sensors into space require specialized considerations. Precise time series measurements and long term stability may be crucial. Such devices may need to operate over an extreme temperature range. The sensors must be robust, in order to allow them to withstand the launch vibration and a hard landing which may be in excess of 20,000 times the force of the earth's gravity. The standard pressure sensor, such as a diaphragm gage, may be unable to stand such stress.
The sensor must also be small: a preferable sensor should have 20 mm of linear dimension and a mass of less than 50 grams. However, many of the previous mechanical sensors required a trade off between the physical size of the diaphragm and the sensing resolution.